CID: Next gen
by Elisha Silverpine
Summary: "Being a kid of a CID officer doesn't make us uber special Mary Sues and Gary Stus. We all have our ups and downs, our special quirks. But, this is my story. The story of my life, with the besharams I call my friends." How the kids of the CID officers live out their lives with each other. Told through the POV of Abhijeet's daughter.
1. Prologue

**So, I'm in grade eleven, I'm a comm+math student, I made friends with a few more _besharams_ , I'm going to Avenues tomorrow to hang out with my best mates, and I have successfully got myself blocked by one DayaVineet'sGirl. Good times. :D**

 **Happy Vishu to all! Expect monthly updates, since my Sunday tests are beginning on Thursday (long story), so I'll have to study.**

* * *

'Sup, puny mortals. Tremble before the power of the feared, the mighty, the awed sensation generating-

You haven't been scared of a word that I've just said now, haven't you? -_-

Blah. The important part is, I'm Priyanka Srivastava. Fifteen years old, now in tenth grade, I'm the younger sibling of Anurag Srivastava and the second kid of senior inspector Abhijeet and Forensic Doctor Tarika. A fangirl by nature, I'm generally a cool person to hang around with unless you insult me or my family. Trust me, you do not want to go there.

I'm also the second in command of sorts to the CID legacies. Who are we? Well, we're all kids of the CID officers. We're the legacy of CID, hence the name. Duh.

But since it takes a while to do any traction, I'll do a head count here. We have Avinash Pradyuman, grandson of the ACP and leader of the whole gig. There's my brother Anurag and I, children of the sharpshooter and the forensics expert. Then the twins Anjali and Rohit, children of Daya uncle and Shreya aunty, living legends who do live up to their legend. Two genius inventors (Amit and Mary), the prankster king and the warrior queen (Rohan and Mayuri), a computer whiz, a talented artist (UV and Shruti respectively) and a bisexual future botanist (Anandi) and you, my good friend, do not want to piss off any one of us.

Being a kid of a CID officer doesn't make us uber special Mary Sues and Gary Stus. We all have our ups and downs, our special quirks. But, this is my story. The story of my life, with the _besharams_ I call my friends.

Except for Avinash. He's hardly a _Besharam Ladka_.

* * *

 **This was short, I know. Stay tuned for more! I'm also accepting suggestions and prompts and review with innovative ideas!**

 **And the whole head count speech was based off the one given by Tony Stark to Loki in _The Avengers_ , while describing the superheros.**

 **For those of who haven't actually read 'The CID Legacies' and want to have basic details about the character, here you go (The character descriptions for the first five legacies):**

 **Avinash Pradyuman: (Adoptive) Grandson of ACP Pradyuman, age 16, with spiky black hair, Caucasian skin and dark brown eyes (wears spectacles). In grade 11.**

 **Priyanka Srivastava: Second child of Abhijeet Srivastava and Tarika Musale, age 15, with long, straight black hair, takes after Tarika with light brown skin and brown eyes (wears specs). In grade 10.**

 **Anurag Srivastava: Older brother of Priyanka, age 16, with curly black hair, takes after Abhijeet with light brown skin and brown eyes(wears specs). In grade 11.**

 **Anjali Shetty: Daughter of Daya Shetty and Shreya Chheda, age 15, with medium wavy black hair, takes after Shreya with light skin and light brown eyes. In Grade 10.**

 **Rohit Shetty: Younger twin of Anjali, age 15, with wavy black hair, takes after Daya with light skin and dark brown eyes. In grade 10.**

 **The others will be described through the one shots by Priya.**

 **Read and review!**


	2. Ruhana Agrawal

**And here is the first one shot! Vineet and his family enters!**

 **The character Ruhana Agrawal is** _ **neither**_ **DayaVineet'sGirl _nor_ based off her, but my own creation which is greatly inspired by one of my ex classmates, who is quite a sweetheart. Hope you enjoy her.**

* * *

I'm over at Anjali's house. The two of us are finishing off our history assignments. We're in the _we- should've-finished-this-shit-assignment-five-days-back-but-we-were-too-lazy-to-do-so_ phase, so we're scribbling as fast as we can on the bloody answer paper.

Predictably, I finish first.

"Aha!" I grin, pushing my bloody ball point pen away from me. Rohit, who's acting as supervisor for the both of us on his parents' behalf, looks through my paper.

"You got question five and seven wrong." He informs me, one eyebrow raised.

"Who cares?" I ask him, stretching my arms out as I lean against the foot of the sofa relaxing. "I'm not applying this in real life, am I?"

"History is important." He reprimands me. "Without your history, you are nothing."

"Oh sure!" Anjali sarcastically replies as she puts her pen down in relief; she must have finished as well. "I'm pretty sure they'll be asking on my job resume, 'In which year were Daniel Defoe's books published?' when I go for CID training."

"You just missed three questions." Rohit ignores the sarcasm and continues, looking at her paper. "Jeez sis, at least _try_ to answer the question, will you?"

"I did _not_ find the answers brother dearest, that's why I didn't answer them."

"Only because you were too lazy to find them out yourself-"

The verbal tirade is broken by Daya uncle's, "Ahem!" He has his car keys in his hand.

"I'm off to the railway station. You kids coming?" A quick affirmative nod leads us into the Shetty family's Scorpio, which sets off on a half an hour journey to the railway station.

"Who are we picking up again?" Rohit curiously asks the driver Daya uncle.

"Vineet, Nithya and Ruhana." Daya uncle replies. The last name comes as a surprise for all of us.

"Ruhana Agrawal? Vineet uncle's daughter?" Anjali asks in confusion.

"The one and only. You remember her, don't you? The both of you were playmates with her."

"Dad, we were all four." Rohit sort of protests. "We hardly remember her."

"Well, here's your chance to bond with her again." Daya uncle says. I try to remember Ruhana, but all I can faintly remember is Vineet uncle and his wife Nithya aunty. Oh well, the get together will help us bond.

I guess I ought to explain.

All the former CID officers of Mumbai are coming over for a get together with our team to visit us (get together will happen the day after tomorrow). Already, some families have reached and are staying either at hotels, or at someone's place. Vivek uncle and his wife Tasha aunty are over at Freddy uncle's place, Suraj uncle and his wife Sandhya aunty are staying at a hotel close by to the venue (Which is the party hall of _Dawat_ restaurant). Vineet uncle and his family will be staying with Anjali and Rohit.

"What does she look like?" I ask Daya uncle. He only shakes his head and smiles as we pull into the parking lot of the railway station. I hate it when adults do that. Why keep us in suspense?

"Where's the internet when you need it?" Anjali scowls in frustration as she looks at her phone screen. Railway network is really terrible at times. The Wi-Fi is so slow, a hundred years can pass and still the screen will show 'Loading'.

"What do you need to look at your Facebook account for?" Rohit asks her quizzically as he peers into her phone. We're all waiting for the train at the platform. The train should have been here by now, but it isn't. We Indians are always in a hurry, but we're never on time.

"To look up on Ruhana Agrawal." Anjali says and sighs in relief as the Wi-Fi gets accessed to. Really, for all its faults, if there's one good thing about railway station Wi-Fi, it's that it is free.

"You do realize that there may be hundreds of profiles named 'Ruhana Agrawal', right?" I remind her. "There's also a chance Ruhana may not have even made her profile on Facebook."

"I could try." Anjali shoots back at me and types in the name in the search box as soon as the Facebook app gets running. The minute the search button is pressed, the 'loading' symbol appears.

"Loading, loading…" I murmur as I reminiscence about that _Idea network_ ad with Abhishek Bachhan in it. Anjali tries to whack me, but stops as results flood in.

"Yes! We have…five million people named Ruhana Agrawal." She scowls again.

"Single out those Ruhanas who appear to be teenagers." I advise her.

"Okay…yeah! Here we have a Ruhana Agrawal who apparently studies in _I'm jobless and I know it_." We look at the picture of a girl with twin braids and a goofy smile who appears to be thirteen at the most. Definitely not Ruhana.

"Shit. Okay, our next Ruhana works at _Charlie and the chocolate factory_." The profile picture is of a seventeen year old teen with acne and geeky glasses who attempts to give a cute pout to the camera. Key word: _attempt_.

"The others all seem to be in college or middle aged ladies! Now what?" Rohit asks us. I'm about to answer when the horn of a train interrupts me.

"Is that…? Yes, that's them!" Daya uncle squints a little, then grins widely. Someone's standing by the second train door of the third carriage. Unless I'm mistaken, that is definitely Vineet uncle.

As the train slows to a halt, Vineet uncle (yes it is him) steps aside to allow a fifteen year old girl to step down. She has dark skin, long wavy brown hair that's pulled into a braid and light brown eyes. She wears a blue shirt, black jeggings and light blue converses. She's pretty and has an athletic body.

"Ruhana! Good to see you again!" Daya uncle exclaims in delight as he goes to help Vineet uncle to bring down their bags. So this is Ruhana Agrawal. I turn to look at Anjali and Rohit-and then I start to snigger.

Rohit's eyes are as wide as they can be. His mouth is open in the shape of a perfect O. He looks like someone who's just struck the lottery big time. The expression is so comical that when Anjali looks at the poor boy, she has to cover her mouth to stop herself from laughing.

Ruhana looks at him in confusion. "Um, hello?" She tentatively asks him waving her hand in front of him. He only responds when Anjali snaps her fingers in front of his face.

"Uh…uh, h-hey!" He stammers in embarrassment. "I'm Shohit Retty. I mean, Rohit Shetty. Not related to the actor at all."

"You mean the director." Ruhana answers, smiling a little now.

"Yeah, the director! So, um, it's been a while since we met." He says, awkwardly looking at his big hands. Seriously? That's the best that he can come up with? He really needs to take classes in conversing with girls and flirting.

"Quite." She says, a little unsure herself from the looks of it.

"I'm his twin, Anjali." Anjali shakes Ruhana's hand with a grin. "And that's Priyanka." She points at me. I wave at Ruhana, who merely smiles before turning back to Rohit.

"Wait!" Anjali says again, preventing Rohit from speaking. "Aren't you there in the _Prithviraj Chauhan High School_ basketball team?"

"How do you know that?" Ruhana asks her, astonished.

"My friend Rittika is in our school basketball team. She said an R. Agrawal was there in that school team. Your team beat ours in two matches, didn't you?"

" _Holy Angels High School, DPS_?" We nod. "Oh. Well, it is true. I love playing basketball. Maybe we could try playing against each other sometime?" She directs that question to Rohit with a grin.

"I'm inexperienced in that field of sport. But you could teach me sometime, right?" Rohit smiles back blushing a little.

"Let's go kids! Talk in the car now!" Nithya aunty calls out at us. As we move toward the exit, Rohit attempts to make further conversation with Ruhana on basketball, which is hilarious because he has no information about the game and has never shown interest before.

"We should've taken a picture." I whisper to Anjali disappointedly.

"Yeah, think of all the blackmailing we could've done to him." She whispers back unhappily as she fiddles with the phone again.

* * *

 **Rohit is actually based off this chap who hates me since I can sing better than him. The geniuses who I base off Ruhana and Rohit actually are crushing on each other, but have not told each other since she's going back to India (They're actually a pretty sweet pair. Karma's a bitch sometimes. :P).**

 **Read and review!**


	3. No means no

**This fandom's starting to disappoint me a bit. How come no one's creating GIFs, digital drawing fanarts, headcanons or anything of that sort? I mean SIRIUSLY. 'Using your imagination' doesn't have to be limited to inserting yourself into a story! (Though how putting yourself in a fic is termed as creativity, I have no idea. It doesn't need much hard work) It can go to creating drawings, headcanons, GIFs and so much more! And the fanfictions! Let's not stop at romance fics! Let's go to different types like texting fics! Parodies! Anything! (Divanims'** _ **Sarabhai vs Sarabhai**_ **has a good plot and idea, but hardly made me laugh due to the format of the story, i.e. script mode)**

 **And yeah, a simple request: Please keep our female officers in character and not as delicate women who cry over extremely mundane matters! They're crime fighters, for gods' sake. I hardly think they're going to start crying on moping over some guy not liking them (as a Purvi fan I feel extremely annoyed when I see fics like that).**

* * *

"Shreya didi's here!" Anurag yells as the door opens to reveal a twenty three year old woman with brown skin, dark curly hair in a pail and brown eyes. Our older adoptive sister grins as we both launch ourselves at her and hug her tightly. "Careful! My hearing aid could fall off!" She laughs as she returns the hug. She's taken leave from her college at Bangalore for two days to attend this get together with us.

"Leave the poor girl, you two!" Dad laughs as well as he brings a blue travel bag, which appear to hold a lot of stuff. Once didi's let go of us, mom engulfs her in a bear hug. After a furious interrogation, it's settled that Shreya didi and I will share a room together while Anurag spends the nights with our parents. Once we finally settle her bag in the room and she takes a shower, we sit on the beds and start chatting.

"So how's the internship going?" I excitedly ask her. Shreya didi's doing her final year at her college, and she's training to be a charted accountant. Shreya didi grins.

"Fantastically." She says. "The practical work is so easy! And I have only two or three classes to worry about, so it's no problem. The theoretical work is much simpler now. But enough about my college. How are you? How's that boyfriend of yours, that Devesh?"

"You mean Devansh? I broke up with him last week."

"Really? What happened?"

"That asshole was cheating on me with two other girls. I slapped him and told him we were done. That was nothing compared to the treatment he got from the other two."

"Oh really?" She laughs, pulling out her iPhone 6s. "I wish I could've seen that, I really do. How did mom and dad take it?"

"Dad just gave this really long sigh of relief like, 'Oh thank god, she's seen the light' kind of sigh. Mom just shrugged and went back to her work."

"Mhm." She smiles as she text messages someone. I look over to see who she is messaging. It's some Prabhakar Bharat. "Who's Prabhakar?" I ask her.

"He's a good friend of mine." She says. Ah. He's asked her on a date. She politely turns him down with a 'Not interested. Sorry man.'

"Hey, did you watch the jungle book?" I ask her, and she's about to reply when Prabhakar texts her back with a, 'Wht do u mean by not intrestd?' Yes, that is the exact message.

"What does he mean by _that_?" I ask her, mystified. She immediately messages him back. Actually this is how the whole conversation goes:

* * *

 **Meaning, I'm not interested in you, so no, I don't want to go on a date with you.**

 _ **Come on. Tell me ur jokin**_

 **I'm afraid I'm not.**

 _ **Ok ths is unfair**_

 **How is this unfair for you?**

 _ **I mean I let u hng out wid our grp, bought you ice creams on ur bdays, nd did so mny thins fr u, the lest u cld do is go out wid me**_

 **WTF? Since when was I obliged to go out with you? And when did YOU let me hang out with Shiv, Sangeet, Virendra and the others?** **If I recall, it was Karthika** **who invited me, NOT you.**

 _ **U ungrateful bitch**_

 **Ok now this is getting nasty. Take that back!**

 _ **I bet u will nvr gt a bf in ur life ur so ugly anyways**_

 _ **U cant even hear properly no one will be intrstd in u**_

 _ **And ur fb prof pic is so ugly I bet thos guys only dated u out of pity**_

 _ **How ds it feel now orphan girl?**_

 _ **Ur pathetic ull grow up nd look lik sum cross eyed monkey**_

 **Cross eyed monkey? Excuse me while I start laughing.**

 _ **Ill say sry only if u go on a date wid me**_

 **Oh is it? Well, I'm sorry Prabhakar, I don't go out with douchebags who can't handle rejection properly to the point where they verbally abuse the rejecter until she agrees to his demands. And until you mature and grow up, I'm blocking you. So bye bye.**

* * *

"That was brilliant didi!" I high-five her. Shreya didi takes some screenshots of the tests he's sent her and then blocks him. A wise choice indeed.

"Girls!" Mom calls from downstairs. "I need some groceries to be picked up, would you mind buying them for me? I'm quite busy."

"Sure thing!" We chorus eagerly and go down to get the list. Normally I shudder at the prospect of buying groceries (why can't Anurag do the work?) but this is another way of bonding for Shreya didi and I. Plus, both Anurag and Dad have gone to Dawat for catering food for tomorrow.

"My best mate Sanjana's getting married next week." Shreya didi tells me as we walk to the local grocery shop, which is about a five minute walk away.

"Really? At the age of twenty three?" I stare at her. That's too young!

"She isn't happy about it. But her parents are the most stubborn people to exist on this planet."

"That's wrong! She should keep telling them that she doesn't want it!"

"Her parents are of the notion that twenty six is 'Too old' for getting married." Shreya didi frowns. "Sanjana told me she'll adjust to it, but I personally feel that she shouldn't do something she doesn't like."

"Didi, if dad tells you to get married against your will-"

"Mom would bloody murder dad if he did something like that for the either of us." Shreya didi says firmly. "Remember Priya, if you don't want to get married young, then don't. If you want to, then it's okay. It's all about your choice, what you want and what you wish for. No life can be lead without regrets, be it a married or unmarried life. Okay?"

"Okay." I grin at her. I don't plan on getting married at twenty one or something. My mom married in her early thirties (Thirty one, I guess, I'm not sure) and she's perfectly content. Leave out the usual marital squabbles which occur between mom and dad, and it's all fine.

At the grocery store, I'm looking for the mushrooms, when I hear the sound of a motorcycle parking from outside. Shreya didi looks up and immediately frowns. I follow her gaze and see through the glass window a guy around didi's age getting down from his bike. The minute he removes his helmet, I realize who he is. Prabhakar.

"Why does he have to be here? Come on, let's finish shopping-oh no, he's seen me." She grits her teeth as he frantically waves and beckons her over. "You continue shopping; I'll have a chat with him. If anything wrong happens, then call dad." She presses into my hand a ten rupee note and the grocery list and walks out. I continue my search for mushrooms, all the while sneaking a peak at the duo, who are conversing quietly. Didi's frown hasn't gone away.

About three minutes later, when I'm going to the counter to pay up, I hear a collective gasp from the people around me. When I look up, I see Prabhakar holding a bloody nose while didi stands there with a furious look on her face. I immediately give the counter guy the money and impatiently wait for him to finish scanning. Once all formalities complete, I rush out of the store eagerly to see what's going on.

"-don't owe you _anything_!" She yells at him. "I simply rejected you because I see you just as a friend! That does not give you the right to insult me and try to degrade me!"

"Will you stop acting like a bitch?!" He yells at her angrily.

"Priya! Call dad!" She tells me. That's enough for him to panic. Quickly, he jams the helmet on his head and rushes out of the area on his bike. Didi looks at her knuckles with a smile.

"Awesome!" That's the only word I can use to describe this.

"No means no." Didi firmly says. "The idiot just couldn't take a hint, could he? Now I'm sure he'll never bother me again, not when I tell our gang. Come on Priyanka. Mom's waiting."

* * *

 **I guess it was a bit short. Did I do well? I hope so.**

 **As for creating headcanons, I solemnly swear that I shall start creating head canons from this very moment! I'm there on Tumblr, so anyone interested can follow my account THEETERNALLYFANGIRLINGAUTHOR. In fact, here's my first headcanon:**

 **Whenever the trio Purvi, Sachin and Nikhil play video games on Purvi's Xbox, there's always an argument over who Purvi would play the game with, as having Purvi in one of their teams would result in victory for the team. The argument sometimes ends with Purvi playing opposite Sachin and Nikhil, which results in victory for Purvi every single time.**


	4. Discussions and bucket lists

**Yes the chapter is a bit short. Forgive me; I've been suffering from writer's block as well.**

 **For any of you wondering, in my verse Tasha never dies. She survives and later she and Vivek shift to Hyderabad where they also get married. They occasionally do come to visit Freddy.**

* * *

The get together is going splendidly. I spot Vivek uncle and Tasha aunty chatting eagerly with Freddy uncle and Manisha Aunty. Suraj uncle and Pankaj uncle are conversing quietly in a corner. All the while, everyone's attention is on us legacies, plus Ruhana, Rishi and Jaidev. After many _hello_ s and _how are you_ s and _remember me I'm so and so_ s, I finally get to the round table where the rest of the gang is sitting.

"I have saved my food!" I triumphantly exclaim, setting my plate gently on the table. "I should get a medal for this."

"Man," Rohan whistles, looking around him, "So many officers know us, but we don't!"

"It's more of a 'We don't remember them much' issue." Mayuri corrects him, retying her straight black hair into a simple ponytail. "It's like meeting the rest of your extended family living two or three states away; all of them remember you, but you don't remember all of them."

"Nicely put." Rishi grins at her, his black eyes glittering from under his bangs. Tall, broad shouldered and with a gentle face, thirteen year old Rishi Hemraj has arrived from his boarding school for attending said get together. He's already about the same height as of Anandi and Mayuri, being only a month younger than them. "But I bet everyone remembers me, the awesome cousin-"

"Rishi," Shruti grumpily says, "Shut up."

"What's got you in a temper, Shruts?" Rohit asks her, a bit concerned. He's one of the few people who calls her that. "You've been snapping and growling at us the whole morning."

"Do you really want to know?"

"Um…yes?"

"Well then," Shruti literally yanks him to her, "My _friend_ has come to visit me, and she's not making it any easy for me!"

"Your who?" Rohit asks confusedly, and then it hits him. "Oh crap. Crapcrapcrapcrap. UV, why didn't you tell me?"

UV shakes his head at him in bemusement. Rohan asks, "Can someone tell me what's going on?"

"Rohan," Mary giggles a little, "Shruti's time of the month has arrived."

Rohan pales immediately. "Holy mother of-its _Ladies' week already_?" He leaps from his chair and rushes behind Mayuri's. "Save me, 'Yuri. Save me from imminent death."

"Off my chair, Prankster King." Mayuri glares her impending glare of doom (don't look at me, UV named it) at Rohan who returns back to his seat next to Shruti. Mayuri likes to call Rohan 'Prankster King' when she gets irritated and Rohan calls her Warrior Queen.

"Why, just _why_ couldn't my body start menstruating yesterday or tomorrow?" Shruti moans. Jaidev Khanna-Suraj Uncle's son-curiously asks her, "Then why did you come today?"

"That's because it wasn't that painful this morning! I shouldn't have drunk milk today!"

"What do you mean?"

"Let me put it this way," I answer, "Shruti on her period plus consumption of dairy products results in a lot of pain all around."

"Oh." Jaidev nods. Ruhana sympathetically asks, "Shruti, do you need anything else now?"

"No, I think it'll lessen in another hour." Shruti groans as she puts her head. "God, I don't think they were exaggerating the pain when they took Sex ed classes!"

"The pain is usually subjective, that's what Kalyani ma'am said." UV thoughtfully comments. We all stare at him.

"You actually paid attention to Sex ed?" Rohan asks his partner in crime.

"Well, duh." UV looks at him with a raised eyebrow. "They're telling us about how we make babies and what happens if we don't. I gotta know that, don't I? Everyone has to."

"Our teachers treat the subject as some sort of taboo, like it's some kind of disease." Jaidev says. Ruhana nods in agreement. "The teachers are under the impression that we're all teenagers who don't use the internet on a daily basis until we're adults. And even then, they cringe when they use the word _Period_."

"Um, even though I'd be delighted to talk about blood coming out of my vayjay, could we say something else? I've got brinjal curry and butter naan in front of me and I don't want to lose my appetite." I plead with them, casting longing looks at my food, which is starting to go cold.

"Is food seriously the only thing on your mind?" Anjali asks me, a little irritated.

"Remind me to put 'convince Priya to think of something else other than food' on my bucket list, next time." Anurag nonchalantly says.

"You actually have a bucket list?" Ruhana asks him.

"Of course we do! Everyone has one." Anurag states this as if this is the most obvious thing in the world.

"Well then, what's on your bucket list anyway?"

"Lots of stuff. What about yours?"

"I…actually haven't made one yet. Am I the only one who hasn't?"

"I guess so." Anurag shrugs and then grins. "Maybe you should put that in your bucket list."

"Well, tell us; what's on the top of your bucket list?" Ruhana asks all of us.

"'Learn skateboarding.'" Mayuri says thoughtfully. "It would be cool, you know, to skateboard here and there. I'm considering asking _Achan_ to buy one this weekend."

"Who's _Achan_?"

"That's the Malayalam word for dad." Mayuri replies and then sighs at our surprise faces. "Hello? I'm half Malayali, remember?"

"Huh. Well, I've always wanted an autograph from Varun Dhawan." I pipe up.

"Wish granted, Priya! We already have a mini Varun Dhawan in our gang!" Anurag theatrically points at Avinash, who good naturedly swats his hand away. He is right; Avinash does resemble Varun Dhawan a bit.

"I'd like the real deal, brother dearest. But what about you?"

"Learn a new language." Anurag promptly replies. "I thought I'd start off with Italian. It's elegant."

As everyone starts animatedly chatting, I shrug to myself and start helping myself to my food. The conversation is great and all, but my food does need to be eaten.

* * *

 **Crap chapter, I know. If you have any prompts or ideas, do share them with me!**

 **Read and review!**


	5. Intro to fanfiction

**34/40 in Economics! In FAIPS DPS (my school), people consider that equivalent to receiving a Bharat Ratna award! So much, that some of my classmates went all, "I hate you!" when they saw the marks. *laughs***

 **Now for my reviewers:**

 **-Anjali: Dear Anjali (is it a coincidence you share your name with one of my besties?), some people are not emotionally ready to be told that they** ** _suck_** **. Trust me, if we try giving them constructive criticism or pointers for improvement, they throw hissy fits and call us bashers. This fandom gets crazier by the day. We're witches who are surrounded by pathetic mudblooded muggles.**

 **-Guestcandy: Have you started watching** ** _agents of SHIELD_** **? That being said, I get your confusion. Here are the ages; Avinash, Amit and Anurag are 16 (Amit turns 16 in September); Priyanka, Rohit, Anjali and Ruhana are 15 (Well, Priyanka turns 15 in July); Mary, Jaidev and Rohan are 14; Rishi, UV, Anandi and Mayuri are 13.**

 **And for my other fic, yes, it will include Purvi and Nikhil as well as Anita and Meghna. No worries there.**

"Mere jiya mein utaari…no! No! Priya, wait!" Anjali hastens to correct me. "You're supposed to be sitting in _aramandalam_ while I dance, not _mukkamandalam_!" **(A/N: Those are phrases used in relatin with bharatnatyam)**

"I'm tired!" I pant and sit on the Shetty household sofa. We're practicing the dance steps to the song 'Pinga' for the inter house dance competition coming up in September (yes, we know it's a long time away, but auditions begin in July and I'd really like Ruby house to win) and Anjali's place. All of a sudden, the door belonging to one of the rooms of the second floor opens and Rohit's face pops out from the twins' bedroom. He has a really irritated expression on his face.

"Could you guys keep it down, please? Ruhana and I are trying to have a conversation."

"You have a whole _week_ to have a conversation with Ruhana." Anjali incredulously tells him from the living room, where we've moved the furniture a bit to make a clear dance floor for ourselves. "And you've been chatting with her for nearly an hour now. You can still Skype her tomorrow!"

Suddenly Rohit hastens into the room again. Five minutes later, he descends into the living room with a sad look on his face as though someone's just told him that his beautiful guitar's been hulk smashed into a thousand pieces.

"Let me guess, Ruhana friend zoned you? My poor baby bro," Anjali teases him as the two of them join me on the sofa, "Don't worry, it's just a crush."

"I'm not crushing on her." He automatically says and turns beet red. We both grin as he continues mumbling about, "Telling her something important," and what not. I switch on the TV to watch something good and go to Star World. It's showing the trailer for _Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them_.

"FINALLY!" I squeal and wave my arms around in excitement. But I accidently strike Rohit in the face, in the process. He swears at me as he and Anjali switch places so that I don't further endanger his visage.

"You're overreacting for a bloody trailer?" Rohit scowls at me as he rubs his eye (I must have jabbed it) indignantly.

"I'm not overreacting, I'm _fangirling_!" I retort in exasperation.

"What's fangirling?" The twins look at me in confusion. Honestly, I'm surrounded by muggles. How on earth did pureblood me befriend ignorant muggles? I guess I have to explain everything now.

"Alright then." I take out my iPhone and stand up to face Anjali and Rohit. "Firstly, you got to know what a fandom is. A fandom is a group that actively discusses about a series, be it a book series or a TV show, and writes fiction, draw art and formulate theories and jokes about it. For example, I love Sherlock, so I'm part of the Sherlock fandom. I write Fanfiction about Sherlock and I draw digital art about John and Sherlock, hence I participate in the fandom. Capiche?" They nod.

"Secondly, 'To fangirl', means to appreciate something that has happened in the fandom. As you have just seen, the Harry Potter prequel 'Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them' trailer has come out. Since I'm in the Harry Potter fandom, I appreciated the fact that I'm finally getting more canon information about the series, therefore I fangirled."

"What's canon?" Anjali asks me in confusion.

"To say something is canon means that this thing has officially happened in the series timeline. For example, in the Harry Potter series, Romione is canon. Dramione is not canon, it is fanon."

"Back up. Just what is 'Romione'?" Rohit shakes his head as he gapes at me.

"Er, yeah, let me explain. 'To ship' means to pair up two people and…how do I explain this? Okay. For example, I like John and Sherlock as a couple therefore I ship them. Only thing is, I've mashed their names together to create their couple name, so I call them 'Johnlock'. Clear?"

"Fangirls are weird." Rohit shakes his head in response. Idjit. "Why can't you be normal?"

"Aren't ordinary people _adorable_." I say in a sing song voice, just like Moriarty. "Besides, it's fun! It's cool to hang out with a bunch of guys and gals who're interested in the same book or TV show! I _love_ the fan art and the fanfiction. I even wrote some!"

"Which fandom did you write for?" Anjali asks me as I go on to using my phone to get to my account _ThedauntlessShadowhunter_.

"I write for the Harry Potter, Sherlock, The Infernal Devices, Supernatural and Twilight fandom." I grin as I show them my stories. Anjali stares at me.

"But I thought you hate Twilight!"

"I do! I write spitefics for Twilight- those are fandom bashing or character bashing pieces of Fanfiction." I explain as Rohit and Anjali scroll down to see the stories I've written and their summaries. Suddenly Anjali slightly grins.

"So…about the whole shipping thing, is it just restricted to fictional people or…" She trails off. What's she getting on to?

"You can ship any two people! I ship Varun Dhawan and Shraddha Kapoor, for heaven's sake!" I state in a _matter of fact_ voice. "Did you know, a lot of people ship our parents and write Fanfiction about them? It seems Abhirika and Dareya are the most popular ships out there."

"Say _what_ now?" The twins chorus, their amused expressions changing to shock. Honestly speaking, I don't blame them. I nearly had a cardiac arrest after reading some of the stories there. Grammar Nazis like me and Anita aunty won't be able to handle the stories.

"You heard me correctly. And not just that, many authors are shipping themselves with our parents themselves!"

"WHAT?!" Rohit looks a bit green. "Don't tell me they've written stories shipping themselves with me now!"

"Of course not! Come to think of it," I frown. "No one's written Fanfiction on us! It's like we don't even exist!"

"Enough about this!" Anjali shakes her head vehemently and turns to Rohit. "So Rohit, what do you think? Avinka or Priyanash?"

 _Say what now_? I think in confusion as Rohit grins a bit. Who the hell are Avinka or Priyanash? They almost sound like ship names!

Wait.

Priyanash.

Priya(nka)(Avi)nash.

You have _got_ to be kidding me.

"Avinka sounds better." Rohit solemnly says.

"Seriously?" I ask them in exasperation. "Avinash and I are _not_ an item! Just because I had a crush on him in sixth grade, doesn't mean I still have one on him! This is one ship that's not going canon!"

"Denial." Anjali sniggers. What's there to laugh about? Seriously, if anyone goes to our school and asks about Priyanka Srivastava and Avinash Pradyuman, they'd get to hear the story about how the Srivastava in question blurted out her unrequited feelings for a certain Pradyuman just before the Christmas holidays commenced and subsequently got friend zoned in front of everyone. I swear, people are still asking about it to me after all this time. It's extremely annoying.

"I'm not denying anything!" I shout at them.

"Oh really? Then what was that look you gave Swati when Avinash got asked out by her?"

"Swati's a prat, everyone knows that." I say. "I'm glad Avinash was sensible enough to turn her down- _stop laughing_!"

"Sorry!" Anjali wipes off the tears trickling down her cheeks as both she and Rohit laugh. I sigh and yank my phone from Anjali's hand to call dad. Our dance session's over at any rate.

 **Okay I am so sorry I didn't update for a while! But it's the vacations now, so you're all gonna be lucky!**

 **I'm issuing a challenge; it's called the 'Logic has died weeping' challenge. Here are the rules:**

 **-The fic has to be a one shot**

 **-You have to write about something that you find no logic in (Like the ever famous 'Char log kya kahenge' phrase or the logic (or the lack of it) in typical Bollywood films like 'Happy New Year', 'Himmatwala', etc.**

 **-The fic has to be a next gen fic. If you want, you can use the CID legacies, but** ** _please_** **keep them in character while doing so.**

 **-The story must be humor centric. If you wish, you may add a little romance into it, but romance must not be the main genre. (Parody centric one shots work just fine)**

 **-It must be written either in the form of pure English or pure Hindi (One or two phrases used in the opposite language are okay). But while writing, in the name of Merlin's most baggy Y fronts, please use proper format, grammar, punctuation, etc. while writing it. No text speak allowed unless it's a texting fic.**

 **-The time period is from the 20** **th** **of June to the 20** **th** **of September, after which I (after going through all entries) will put up a poll asking you to vote for the best story. This poll will last for a month after which I will post the results on my bio profile.**

 **Cheerio! Read and Review!**


	6. Girls' night out

**Title:** Girls' night out

 **Rating:** T

 **Main characters:** Priyanka Srivastava, Anjali Shetty, Mary Nagrath, Mayuri Pandey, Shruti Kumar and Anandi Williams

 **Word count:** 1837

 **Background song credits:** _Hey Mama~ Nicki Minaj_

 **Author's notes:** I thought I'd write this down for characterization of the girls. You'll hear more about the boys in later chapters. I've also designed outfits for the girls using polyvore and am putting the links here. Guestcandy, there's a website called _Online free cinema_ where you can watch Agents of SHIELD. I downloaded the episodes using uTorrent to watch them.

* * *

"What do you think?" Anjali asks as she comes out of the changing room. The blue blouse she's wearing right now goes well with her jeans (Heck, anything goes well with jeans) and stud earrings.

"Niice." I give her a thumbs up in approval. "What's the price?"

"Nineteen thousand rupees. I'll get mom to buy it for me later." Anjali goes back into the changing room and comes out a few minutes later, clad in her denim jacket and yellow blouse. She asks me, "Anything caught your eye yet?"

"Nah, I saw a couple of cute tops, but…" I shrug as I check some kurtas in the rack beside me. Nearby, a completely irritated Mayuri groans as she slumps back into her chair.

We're having a girls' night out. That means we-the female CID legacies- get to roam around from 5:30 PM to 8:00 PM in this new shopping mall 'Marine mall' on our own, mostly window shopping (and some actual shopping) and having dinner. Each of us have a thousand rupees in our purses (which we haven't spent on anything till now). For the past one and a half hours we've been talking and window shopping.

I generally get bored when my mum and I go shopping (unless I'm the one doing the shopping or I'm with my besties) and sometimes bring my iPod with me to escape boredom. The only other time I like shopping is when it's either books, fandom merch or make-up.

Anjali likes shopping only when it concerns sleeveless tops and jackets (she loves denim). If it's not clothes, she goes shopping for snacks (seriously, this girl finishes off food in the same time that Daya uncle takes to break doors down).

Mary likes shopping for colourful tops and skirts. But she generally makes a beeline for 'Bath and Body works' or the super market when she goes shopping (her muffins are AMAZHANG) for all cooking purposes and hygiene.

Shruti shops for checked shirts and leggings. She can usually be found in the historical section of book stores or in the stationary shops (her anime drawings are awesome; she draws scenes for my stories).

Anandi is in LOVE with dresses and heels as well as jewellery and make-up. I actually heard Kavin uncle saying that Anandi's penchant for dressing up was draining his wallet. All in all, we five like shopping when it comes to us actively participating in the process.

But Mayuri, who has Anita aunty pick out almost everything for her, associates shopping with the word TORTURE. Especially clothes shopping (The only time she shops is when she's in the sports section or when it's Disney themed stuff (she's a complete fangirl when it comes to Disney), which is quite rare).

"Can you hurry up already?" She growls at us.

"Come on Mayuri! You try something out!" Anjali says and points at an emerald green kurta top. "Why don't you try this on? It matches your eyes!"

"I'm not fond of kurta tops in general!" Mayuri shakes her head vehemently.

"Why don't we go to Bath and Body works? I'm sure you'll find something there!" I tell them hurriedly. Mayuri's not exactly a sweet tempered person and trust me, when she's pissed off, it would do you wise to run in the other direction as fast as you can.

"Oh all right." Mayuri shrugs, her irritated expression slowly fading. We put the clothes back in their places and go to said shop, where Mary, Shruti and Anandi are busy examining the different hand sanitizers. Upon seeing me, Mary grins and hurries over.

"Hey, check this out!" She hands me a hand sanitizer. It's pink and apparently smells of mixed berries. I open the lid and sniff. It does have a sweet smell.

"Mayuri, ithe onne noku!" Anandi shows her cousin a bottle filled with some marine blue liquid. Mayuri idly examines it and looks at her. "Ninneke already conditioner ille? Ithrem vegam nee athe theertho?" She asks, one eyebrow raised.

Malayalam is really confusing. I tried speaking it, but miserably failed.

"Athoke vide; nallathalle ithe?"

"Could you both please translate?" Shruti looks up from a row of purple bottles in irritation. "I hate to break it to you, but the rest of us don't speak Malayalam."

"I just asked her for her opinion on this conditioner." Anandi says, slightly amused. "She asked me whether I'd finished off my stash already."

"That's because _you_ , cousin dearest, always ask us for our opinion on a thing whenever you wish to buy it." Mayuri rolls her eyes at Anandi and turns to Shruti and Mary. "You ladies done yet?"

"I bought this face wash and Mary was only interested in looking. Yeah, we're done. Where next?" Shruti asks us, holding up a blue plastic bag.

"Why not Debenhams? We could look around-" Anandi asks eagerly and backtracks upon seeing the look on Mayuri's face. "Not to _buy_ anything! Just to look!"

"Let's give it a try, Mayuri." Mary gently tells her. "Why don't you hang around with me while they're all browsing?"

"Hmm." Mayuri once again shrugs with resignation. With that, we all walk over to Debenhams, which is just three stores and a coffee shop away. Mary drags Mayuri over to the perfume section, Shruti and Anjali go to check out the clothes there and Anandi and I check out the cosmetics.

"What are you looking for, Priya?" Anandi asks me.

"I'd like to check out the nail polish here." I reply and scrutinize the different nail polish bottles. "What about you?"

"I'm going to check out some of the eyeshadow brushes." Anandi says and picks up one from a table.

"Don't you have enough make up as it is?" I ask her as I compare 2 bottles; one is sky blue and the other is periwinkle blue.

"I said _check out_ , not _buy them_. Gosh, nobody has faith in me?" Anandi mock pouts. I laugh a little before going back to the bottles. After deciding between marine blue, periwinkle blue, sky blue and royal blue, I decide to buy the marine blue one for a hundred and fifty rupees. Why do guys always classify colours as either light or dark? I mean, there are so many types of shades for one particular colour.

After 30 minutes, all of us get back to the entrance. Over there, Anjali asks, "So, now what? It's 7:30 and I'm feeling hungry."

"Where do you guys want to eat at?" I ask them.

"Pizza express?" Mayuri offers, clearly relieved that we're doing less shopping and more talking.

"Dawat restaurant?" Mary suggests.

"How about that new Chinese restaurant they've set up nearby _Athlete's foot_?" Shruti interjects into the conversation. "It's got both veg and non veg, so no one has to worry."

That sounds like a good idea, so we all walk to the restaurant with Shruti at the lead. The restaurant has red and yellow décor and has Chinese lanterns hanging from the ceilings. We sit around one of the round tables and look at the menu. A waitress comes over to take our order.

"What do you wish to order?" She asks pleasantly. We all order dumplings for starters. Once he lady leaves, we begin conversing again.

"What's going on with you and UV?" Shruti asks Anandi suspiciously.

"We've broken up." Anandi replies as she pours herself a glass of water from a bottle sitting on the table. "It happened around two months ago Shruti, didn't he tell you?"

"He didn't tell anyone." Shruti says, slightly mystified. "I heard rumours that you were dating someone else from him yesterday. He seemed rather nonchalant about that fact."

"And you didn't ask him?"

"I was drawing a Natsu and Lucy scene that time so I wasn't paying much attention then. So you're really dating someone else?"

"Yeah, from my math tuition class. She's really nice-"

"She?!" We all exclaim in surprise. We all know Anandi's bisexual, but it's not every day that you hear one of your friends say that she's got a girlfriend.

"Yeah, I'm dating a girl, What's wrong with that?" Anandi asks us as though she's just declared something perfectly ordinary and we're just over reacting about it.

"Nothing's wrong with that!" Mayuri hurriedly reassures her. "Well, who's the lucky girl?"

"Swati Iyer. She studies in your school."

"Swati Iyer." I nod without thinking. And then I register the name carefully. "Wait. _Swati Iyer_? As in, real estate developer Venkatesh Iyer's daughter Swati Iyer?"

"Yeah, what's wrong?" Shruti, Mary, Mayuri and Anandi stare at me. Anjali sighs and puts on a long suffering expression.

"Are you kidding me? You're dating her?! Geez Anandi, I thought you had good taste!" I tell her dubiously. "She's single handedly the most annoying, stuck up, pathetic-"

"Priyanka's disliked her ever since fifth grade, Anandi. She's pretty fine, if not a little vain." Anjali says in a bored tone. "Chillax, Priya."

"She's horrible!" I scowl at her. "Anandi, how can you tolerate her?"

"Calm down Priya," Mary tells me, "You're over reacting."

"I am not over reacting!"

"Yes you are. And look the food is here, so shut up and eat." Mayuri firmly tells me as the waitress brings the dumplings over. I glower as I take one from the tray. But it'd pretty hard to remain annoyed over something as trivial as this (which, technically speaking, is not a topic to rage about) and soon, by the time I'm done with the dumpling, I'm laughing with the others about how Purvi aunty reacted to Rohan's new punkish look.

"Oh man, it was hilarious!" Mayuri giggles. "As soon as she saw Rohan's ear piercings and streaked hair, she just went, like, 'Rohan Nikhil Shukla, you are _grounded_ , do you hear me? And Nikhil, we are going to have to talk about this tonight!'"

"Oh man." Anjali doubles over in laughter, "Purvi aunty must have gone all Molly Weasley on him!" She starts doing a magnificent imitation of Molly Weasley. "Rohan Shukla, _how dare_ you appear in such a disgraceful manner! I am absolutely disgusted! You could get into trouble at school and it'd be all your fault! If you decide to do something like this in the future, you'll see just how terrifying I can be!"

We all howl with laughter at this. I'm hundred percent sure Purvi aunty has definitely said something along the lines of this to Rohan. But before anyone can say anything else, Shruti's phone rings, which she picks.

"Hello?" She says into her mobile, "Yeah dad, it's going splendidly…you're coming to pick us up? What about mom...oh come on…we have fifteen more minutes left…yeah, we're having Chinese…dad, crack one more pun and I will shoot you with mom's gun…yeah, puns are not your forte…just stick to sarcastic humour…okay, bye."

"So Rajat uncle's picking us up?" I ask her.

"Yeah, mom called in sick." Shruti replies and pours herself a glass of water. She then holds it up, saying, "Best girls' night out. Agreed?"

"Agreed!" We all pour glasses of water and hold it up to clank it against hers.

* * *

 **Author's notes:** Did you like it? R & R!

Here are the outfits:

Priyanka Srivastava: priyanka_srivastava_outfit-casual/set?id=199891001

Anjali Shetty: anjali_shetty/set?id=203270689

Mary Nagrath: mary_nagrath/set?id=203324821

Shruti Kumar: shruti_kumar/set?id=203326518

Mayuri Pandey: mayuri_pandey/set?id=203341238

Anandi Williams: anandi_williams/set?id=203343195


	7. Happy birthday Priya!

**Title:** Happy birthday Priya!

 **Rating:** T

 **Main characters:** Priyanka Srivastava, Tarika Srivastava

 **Word count:** 2541

 **Background song credits:** _Birthday~Will. I. Am_

* * *

TRINGGGGGGGGG! Goes that bloody alarm clock at 5:30 AM. I get up, mostly grumbling to no one in particular as I stop the ringing. For roughly five seconds I try to figure out what day it is and why in the name of Queen Elsa of Arendelle have I gotten up at sodding 5:30 in the morning. And then- as I look at the calendar, it hits me. It's Sunday, and it's my birthday.

It's my birthday! Happy birthday to me! Oh wait, it's not just my birthday, it's also JK Rowling's and Harry Potter's birthday! Happy Birthday to all of us!

" _It's my birthday, it's my birthday…_ " I sing the song _Birthday_ by Will. I. Am after brushing my teeth and running to the dining table. Over there, a half asleep Anurag has placed his head on the table, his hand loosely holding a mug that rests next to his forehead.

"Good morning, brother mine!" I cheerfully tell him. His response to that is a sound that's a mix between a groan and growl, which is quite remarkable.

"You know what today is, right?" I beam at him.

"A bright, beautiful Sunday that did not warrant any reason to wake me up at 5:00 in the morning?"

"Yeah it's a Sunday. But there's something else…"

"And it's your birthday. Happy birthday. Now let me go back to sleep."

"You know what they say Anurag, _early to bed, early to rise…_ "

"Happy birthday Priya!" Mum exclaims happily as she walks into the dining room and plants a kiss on my forehead. " _Dadi_ had called earlier. She said that she and _dada_ have started from Mysore already!"

"Cool! Where's dad?" I ask her. As if on cue, dad walks in. He's worn his usual work clothes today, minus the jacket. "Happy birthday _beta_!" He says and hugs me.

"So dad," I tell him after mum goes to the kitchen to get my coffee, "Where are we off to today? You said it was a surprise."

"Well, I was thinking of-" Dad begins, but he's cut off by the ring tone of his mobile. "Who could be calling me now?" He asks himself as he picks it up. "Hello? Yes, Daya tell me… _what_? What are you saying Daya…on a Sunday? And it's her birthday…alright then…see you." He disconnects the call with a frown.

"What did Daya uncle say?" I ask him curiously.

"Bad news," Dad sighs, "Chitrole's called us all in for a meeting just now. I'm afraid we'll have to cancel the outing today-"

"Not fair!" I reply, aghast. Of all the days DCP Chitrole could have called in everyone for a meeting, he had to do this today? It's Sunday, for god's sake!

"Will I have to come too?" Mum asks him.

"It's for us officers alone." Dad tells her. "Why don't you and Priya go to the zoo today?"

"Dad, can't you somehow persuade him to move it up?" I plead with him in desperation.

"Sorry, Priya. You know how DCP sir is; the man can be really stubborn when he wants to be." Dad sighs and moves outside the room. Mum just shakes her head before telling me, "Priya, go take a bath. And Anurag, drink up your coffee and start studying."

Half an hour later, I'm done with my bath and come down wearing a sleeveless blue top which reads "I AM SHER-LOCKED' and a denim skirt. I hear a quick 'Bye!' echo from the house entrance and then the sound of a door being shut. In the living room, mum's talking with Shreya aunty on the phone while Anurag is sitting on the sofa studying chemistry.

"-yes Shreya, we're going out in a couple of minutes…she is upset…yeah, she's here, bye!" She sets it down as soon as she sees me and smiles. "Ready?" She asks me as she puts her mobile in her grey handbag.

"Yeah," I nod a bit dejectedly and turn to Anurag. "Bye bro." I tell him. He just waves at me in response.

In the car, mum starts it, turns on the radio and asks me, "So how would you like to begin? The bird exhibit or the reptile house?"

"Reptile house for sure." I say, a little cheerful now. "I've missed the snakes!"

"I heard they brought in a new python last week and took out the tarantula." She says as she starts driving. "Good thing; I never liked it anyway."

"They took the tarantula?" I reply in surprise, "That's a shame; I was fond of it. But there's a new python, so it's cool!"

"Yeah," Mum grins as she takes the second exit. Thirty minutes of Sonu Nigam, Shreya Ghoshal, Vishal Dadlani and Ankit Tiwari later, we reach the zoo. It's quite difficult to get some space for parking a car on holidays, but we find one. When we get out and go to the entrance, mum goes to the ticket counter to purchase them while I wait by one of the animal statues. All of a sudden, I feel a vibration in my bag and the muffled sound of 'Harry Potter in ninety-nine seconds'. I rummage through it to find my mobile. The caller ID shows Avinash's name, which makes me smile.

"Hi Avi!" I joyfully answer the phone.

"Happy birthday, fangirl!" Avinash replies with equal enthusiasm. "What's today's special?"

"Mum and I are at the zoo! Hey, is it true they took that tarantula away?"

"Sadly, yes. But I've never really understood your fascination with those creepy crawlies."

"What, is there a rule that prohibits girls from liking creepy crawlies?"

"Well, no-"

"So there," I reply in satisfaction. In the background, I can hear a couple of voices. I recognize Rajat uncle's voice in the mix. "Hey, are you at the bureau?"

"What?" Avinash's voice turns a little panicky. "Oh, uh…well I actually…"

"Yes, you are at the bureau." I quizzically state. "What are you doing there for?"

" _Dada_ made me come. Apparently the fact that I'm a healthy sixteen-year-old boy isn't good enough for me to remain home alone." He sighs. I slightly giggle at that.

"Priya! I've got the tickets!" Mum suddenly appears by my side, clutching two multi coloured tickets in her hand.

"Gotta go Avi, sightseeing time!" I say and cut the call after his goodbye. Within minutes we're inside the zoo, where I spot plenty of bird enclosures containing parrots, parakeets, love birds, etc.

The zoo has always been a special place for me. Mum and Dad often tell me that when I was little, I used to squeal whenever Dad put Animal Planet on TV. I love animals, especially the reptiles. And with an ice cream in my hand and mom by my side, the zoo is always a lovely place to be in.

In the reptile house, I look rather sadly at the rectangular glass box where they had put that tarantula before. In its place, they've put a king cobra. The cobra seems to be asleep at the moment, though it's impossible to tell, given that snakes don't have eyelids.

"I miss Lee Jordan." I gloomily tell Mum.

"Who's Lee-" My mum begins in confusion, and then stops abruptly. She then looks at me in amusement, "You named a spider after Lee Jordan?"

"What? The poor thing needed a name!"

"So you decided to give each and every creature in this zoo a name? Let me guess, you named the crocodile Stan Lee."

"…"

"…you actually named the crocodile Stan Lee?"

"Mum, these poor creatures deserve some form of recognition." I tell her solemnly, "And what better than a name? This cobra is the only creature which doesn't have a name yet."

"So what will you name it as?" Mum asks me interestedly. I think about it for a moment and then grin. "I'm calling it Raju."

" _Raju_?"

"Just kidding! I hereby designate it the name Leo Valdez!"

"Leo Valdez?"

"Hey, it's either that or Raju!"

Two hours later, we're at the zoo café, sipping cold drinks and eating Pav Bhaji as my birthday breakfast while we watch a toddler trying to put his hand through an enclosure containing a massive cheetah. The kid's parents keep on batting his hand away while the cheetah looks rather curiously at the whole spectacle.

"What's the time?" I ask her.

She checks her watch and says, "It's nine-thirty now. Do you want to go home or do you want to do something else?"

"I've got nothing." I shrug. "Home it is! When are _Dada_ and _Dadi_ reaching the station?"

"In the afternoon. Let's go then, shall we?"

At home, mum goes to her room to do some paper work while Anurag and I sit on our sofa watching Fairy Tail on Animax. He waits until a commercial comes on, and then asks me, "How was the zoo?"

"They replaced Lee with a king cobra!" I tell him. "That's terrible!"

"I never liked that Tarantula anyway," He sighs in relief, "What did you name the snake?"

"Leo Valdez." I say with resignation. Just then, my mobile pings, about the same time as Anurag gets up and moves in the direction of the loo. It's from Avinash.

 **Hi, Fangirl! U bk home yet?**

The usage of text speak rather ticks me off, but I push it aside and text him back.

* * *

 _Yeah. Lee Jordan's gone!_

 **Ok, whos Lee Jordan?**

 _The tarantula!_

 **XD U named the spider?**

 _Hades, yeah! And the new King Cobra as well!_

 **XD XD XD**

 _Oi! This ain't no laughing matter!_

 **Priya, they r animals. Wht r u naming thm fr?**

 _To give them a sense of identity of course! Like how you named your Labrador Nuclear Bomb!_

 _Siriusly though, Nuclear Bmb?_

 _*Bomb_

 **I was gng to name it Micro Molecule b4, but Nuclear Bomb sounded cooler.**

 _Imagine that: A guest comes over and you say, "And over here we have Nuclear bomb"_

 _And the guest goes, "AAH! NUCLEAR BOMB?!"_

 **XD**

 _And you go, "No, that's my dog! Nuclear Bomb is my Labrador puppy!"_

 **LOL XD XD XD**

 _Yeah, we're all 'Trolling for the lulz', to quote Das Mervin._

 **XD**

 _So, how is the meeting going?_

 **Wht meeting?**

 _The meeting that DCP called everyone for?_

 _Hello?_

 _Avinash?_

 _?_

 **Oh tht meeting! Concluded 20 mins bk.**

 _And it took this much time to remember? I'm shocked, Junior Pradz, I truly am._

 **Junior Pradz? Do u knw hw ridiculous tht sounds?**

 _ACP Pradyuman got nicknamed Grandpa Pradz, be grateful I don't call you grandson Pradz._

 **Vry funy**

 _I know, I'm hilarious._

 **Gtg. M busy rite now. Ttyl**

 _Yeah, I'll talk to you later._

* * *

At One O' Clock, after a particularly sumptuous lunch, I await the train carrying my grandparents at the station with mum and Anurag. Dad hasn't come with us. Apparently, there's some extra paper work he has to do today that needs to be submitted this evening, so he's being held back by the dear old DCP. Poor dad.

"Are they here yet?" Anurag eagerly peers to his right.

"They should be here by now." I say impatiently while craning my neck in the same direction. Just then, we hear the gong of the bell. In the distance we see a speck of red that starts enlarging rapidly.

"They're here!" We yell in delight as the train starts slowing down. I grin as the train finally stops and _dada_ and _dadi_ get down with their two bags. _Dada_ -from whom mum has got most of the looks- is wiry and thin with short, receding grey hair. _Dadi_ is a bit plumper, but with aristocratic features and a hooked nose.

"Priya! Anurag!" _Dada_ hugs me and _Dadi_ hugs Anurag. "Happy birthday Priya! How old are you, fifteen?" _Dada_ asks me with a gentle smile.

"Fifteen it is!" I beam at him. Out of the corner of my eyes, I now see _Dadi_ huggingMum.

"So, that's it!" Mum says enthusiastically. "All we need to do is make a trip to the bureau. Vaibhav just texted me right now to come. It's paper work collection day for the both of us."

During the drive to CID HQ, _Dada_ and _Dadi_ bring us up to speed on what they've been doing back in Ahmedabad. _Dada_ 's attempt at gardening has worked successfully and _Dadi_ has to often remind him to get back into the house for eating and many such activities.

"Roses, Sunflowers, Hydrangeas…I'm looking for newer plants!" _Dada_ informs us enthusiastically.

"And I have to keep on reminding him that activities such as eating and sleeping are important for the sake of his well-being." _Dadi_ fondly shakes her head. "But I have to say, the garden looks beautiful."

 _Dadi_ on the other hand has been attempting newer and newer recipes. When we ask her about them, she just laughs. "It's a surprise," She says mysteriously with a grin.

When we reach the bureau, Mum parks the car in the garage. "Priya, come with me. I'll need you to carry some of the files for me."

"Hey, why can't Anurag do it?" I ask indignantly.

"Because lazy bums like you ought to move about more." Anurag sniggers at me. "Come on sis, it won't take long. If it makes a difference, I'll come with you."

The argument thus being settled, the three of us make our way to the bureau. When we get there, we see that the room is dark. Not a single sound is to be heard there. _Where is everyone?_ I think in confusion.

"Why are the lights switched off?" I ask Mum, who simply switch them on. As soon as light enters the room, I get my answer. The walls of the room have been covered with crepe paper and balloons. On the wall at the end of the room hangs a green banner with bold blue letters spelling _Happy Birthday Priyanka_! And as if on cue, all the CID officers plus the CID legacies get up from under the tables and yell "Happy Birthday!" at me.

"Whoa!" I slowly grin. "So _this_ was the emergency meeting DCP Chitrole called everyone for? Although that is rather OOC for him."

"I made up that bit." Dad says, looking pretty pleased with himself.

"Well, I am impressed." I nod my head in appreciation. My gaze then falls on the table in the middle of the room. It holds a golden coloured cake within it. I recognize that cake from that pastry shop _Chocolate Éclair_ and look at everyone in amazement and delight.

"You remembered the butterscotch cake?" It's official; I have the best family in the world. "You remembered to buy it?"

"Don't tell me you had very little faith in us!" Avinash mock pouts.

"And let me guess, you got me a pet spider as well?"

"Er…no."

"Pity. But never mind, this is awesome!"

"Yeah babe, so now it's time to cut the cake!" Anjali loudly announces as Rajat uncle brings out the candles.

"And as usual, you'll have my whole face covered in cake, won't you?" I ask my fellow legacies with a helpless smile, to which they seriously nod. Oh well, it's tradition anyway. As I move towards the cake, everybody starts singing.

"Happy birthday to you, Happy birthday to you…"


End file.
